Shawn Church reviews the forthcoming Honda FCX Clarity, the company’s new hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle due to be released next year.
Of course, with all human endeavors, there is still great debate on the best way to power personal transportation in the future. Interim solutions such as diesel and gas/electric or diesel/electric hybrids have much to offer, but in the long run, most believe that internal combustion will be largely supplanted either by pure electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles. And the FCX Clarity already demonstrates that even an early generation fuel cell vehicle easily outpaces 2nd and 3rd generation gas-electric hybrids. Honda claims that the FCX Clarity already achieves twice the energy efficiency (tank to wheel) of modern compact hybrids, converting 60% of the available energy into forward motion vs. 30% for hybrids, while obtaining nearly 50% better mileage per gallon (gasoline equivalent energy).
In the longer run, the question then becomes fuel cell vs. plug in electric? The answer to this question is more difficult because there are fewer reference points to compare, but Knight points out that today, a pure electric car plugged into the United States national power grid will actually produce more CO2 (well-to-wheel) than the FCX Clarity using reformed natural gas. Obviously, this is hard to verify, but given the preponderance of coal fired electrical generation in the USA, it doesn’t seem unreasonable.
There are, to be sure, a number of obstacles to overcome, including creating a distribution infrastructure for hydrogen - an obstacle Honda is trying to innovate its way around - but I think the reviewer is right when he asserts that the Clarity puts Honda at “the forefront of ecologically sound automotive propulsion.” Especially if Honda can bring the price down to a point that a large number of customers can buy the Clarity, and Honda can still make a profit.
